04/01/08
In De Nile -
Categories: A terrible pun to start my first blog of the year, but its the only chance I've had to make the joke since having a week's Xmas hols in Egypt. No one over there got it, and no one over here has paid any attention to me when I've said it as its such an awful play on words that it deserves to be blocked from memory and eradicated from thought from its first mention. However, I like it, so unfortunately all who read this blog will be subjected to it, and hopefully, just hopefully one person might chuckle then feel sad about how their sense of humour is dying.
Happy New Year by the way, which is how this blog should of started. I hope you all feel rested and excited to start the year of 2008 despite the fact it is merely another 365 days leading to the next set and now (apart from birthdays) there are little to no presents involved. As I increase in elderlyness I seem to enjoy New Year's Eve and its oncoming doom less and less. So this year my girlfriend and I made a conceited effort to escape the country and have a much deserved and long awaited week's holiday.
Not having any baring on my girlfriend's half Egyptian origin, its amazing ancient history or the fact that camels look funny, we decided to head to Luxor mainly due to the God of Decisions - my bank account. Oh, and the fact that it was bloody hot over there, and it wasn't and still determinedly isn't, here. Christmas holidays are an increasingly popular way to spend the festive for the British public and we weren't quite early enough to book the destinations we originally aimed for. In retrospect though, in light of recent events, I'm pretty glad we missed out on the decent deals to Kenya, or I might of had a moderately less fun holiday. In fact I know for sure that I enjoy sunbathing and eating much more than being killed mercilessly by the Luo tribe. Just personal preference really.
All in all though we had a really great time. Egypt's history is incredible and I can't compare seeing the Karnack temple to anything else. Walking among 3000 years of history is indescribable, so I wont really try. It is just breathtaking though and it makes me wonder why we haven't learnt anything from it. In ancient times they transported everything by foot, built everything by hand, and used rudimentary tools to create and measure everything, and it has lasted through earthquakes, floods and thousands of fat American tourists leaning on it. Yet nowadays we have all these machines and clever gadgets and yet things fall apart, break down and generally don't last despite precautions, warranties and insurance policies. I'd love to give you a clever example of this right now, but I don't have one. You will just have to trust my cynical opinion and hopefully in the near future a large building will fall down and you will say 'Ah, Tiernan was right'. I'd like to point out right now that I'm not plotting any devious activities to ensure this.
I'd reccommend visiting Karnack to anyone. It was such an overwhelming place that even a phenomenly dire 'Sound and Light' show that involved sitting still watching a lake by the temple as some lights are shined on it and badly written and acted voiceovers tell you the same stories over and over again for 45 minutes instead of anything actually fun, could not dampen my opinion. My friend today did point out that although very little happened in this show, there were sounds and lights and so it was factually not wrong. He said we were lucky it wasn't just a man with a torch and a triangle. He's right and I suppose at the same time, I'm pleased that the Americans haven't invested in it and created a big musical laser extravaganza involving such hits as 'Toot 'n' come over here'. Sorry, no more puns. Promise.
Anyway, I learnt a lot of Egyptian history from all the temples and tombs I visited and despite the odd bit of information (such as the incestuous nature of most Pharaohs at some point marrying their daughters. Much joking about how the residents of Cornwall might be related in origin to Ramses the Third methinks) its a fascinating mix of tales and facts. Aside from this we also braved a camel ride which was nowhere near as funny as they look. I had imagined that riding a camel would be a slightly bumpy end to end laugh of a trip with much spitting and lack of water drinking. Actually its a horrible experience. I now realise that camels are described as the 'ships of the desert' because you are highly likely to get seasick while riding one. Afterwards I walked like a rickets victim for a whole afternoon. I will bear that in mind incase I ever need to use method acting to play a rickets victim in the future.
The only real dampener to the whole week (yes, there had to be some otherwise this would not be my blog) was the constant harrassment from the locals. I have experience such annoyance before in Turkey, Cuba and Mexico, but in Egypt they really step it up a level. What I cant conceive is why the perpertratiors of this awful technique would ever begin to think that obstructing people's ways and attempting to force them to buy things from you, would actually work. Time after time we would tell people politely 'no thanks' and they would continue to run after us with a crap plastic sphinx or something else of reasonably useless potential. The 'no thanks you's' would turn into completely ignoring them, eventually followed by some sort of expletive that they would then feign shock at, as though they hadn't at all been irritating as hell. Surely by now, it must click in all their heads, that they are only losing themselves business and instead they should just allow people to choose which services to take themselves? Unless of course I have it all wrong and it's a clever plan to try and ensure people do not ever return to their city. Perhaps they are the Egyptian equivalent of British Nationals, only instead of skinhead violence they use poor customer relations and bad sales tactics to drive the foreign scum away. It would make sense as its the technique Argos have been using for years.
The other bad thing about the holiday was of course the old cliche that it wasn't long enough. Seven days is not quite enough to re-cooperate from a busy year, and so I can be glad that January is a very quiet month for me. Once again the bank is not quite as happy as me about it, but it will have to deal with it. I'm very content with escaping the horrible cold by sitting in my jammies and playing with all the crappy Egyptian souvenirs I got conned into buying out of guilt.
Comments:
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06/01/08 @ 16:34 · http://www.simple.co.uk a) you mean concerted, not conceited.
b) you mean recuperate. Not re-cooperate. As far as I can tell re-cooperate could only mean attempting to get he show 'Hangin with Mr Cooper' back on tv.
The best thing in your blog is the joke I made. Bitter?
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08/01/08 @ 12:39 Permalink
08/01/08 @ 12:53 
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